When a Masterpiece Is Not

When a previously unknown painting by a 17th-century Dutch master is authenticated by some of the finest curators and experts, sold for $10 million and then abruptly discovered to be a fake, questions arise. Many of them.

The work is a portrait of an unsmiling man with long hair dressed in black, which first came to attention in Paris in 2008 when a collector, who thought it “might be” linked to the school of Frans Hals, showed it to experts. Although there was no record of Hals having made the work, the experts’ consensus was that “Portrait of a Man” was that wondrous find: a previously unknown Old Master. In 2011, Sotheby’s sold it to another collector.

But then some other paintings by Old Masters — most notably one by Lucas Cranach the Elder, all apparently sold by the same man, Giuliano Ruffini — came under suspicion. Sotheby’s sent “Portrait of a Man” for technical analysis, which found traces of contemporary materials. The auction said it was “undoubtedly” a fake and reimbursed the buyer.

The first question concerns expertise. In this case, it took science, not the expertise of students of art, to spot the fake. The suspicion now is that the same painter may be behind those other suspect paintings. And if the forger is so skilled that he or she can create works in the style of diverse artists, all good enough to fool top experts, how many more fakes are out there?

Remember, these are not copies. In fact, though the painting carried the initials FH, Mr. Ruffini never claimed he was selling a Hals, but rather asked experts to determine whether that’s what he had.

And that leads to the next question. While the “Portrait of a Man” was thought to be a Hals, it fetched $10 million. Now that it’s not, it’s worth a small fraction of that, even though it’s the same painting — the same work “executed with so much refinement and skill that many connoisseurs believed it was painted by the master himself,” as one curator said. That confirms, to no one’s surprise, that the market value was all about the name and provenance of the work rather than in the beauty.

And that is why there have been forgers for as long as there has been a market for great art. The temptation for forgers is not likely to change, though new scientific methods are likely to make life more difficult for them. In the end, there can be no disputing that a masterpiece is a masterpiece and a fake is a fake.

Still, this enigmatic portrait of a man in black is a wonderful work, and Frans Hals deserves credit at the least for inspiring the unknown painter to such heights.